Is this normal?

[CanIBeAnonymous]

So we started clerkships, and from what I'd hear on SDN it may as well be the end of the world 80+ work weeks.

However, I'm on Surgery right now and I get in around 6am and leave by 2pm unless there's an interesting case I want to see. We have weekend call twice over the course of 10 weeks. I'm hearing the same from friends on other rotations where they seem to be regularly done by 3pm.

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[DrStephenStrange]

80 hour work week is for residents. No way a student should be working more than 60 hours a week on clinicals.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

80 hour work week is for residents. No way a student should be working more than 60 hours a week on clinicals.

It's more posts from 2008-2012 that would show folks on clinical rotations working 80hrs a week. Wondering if this paradigm shift was recent or not; I had friends in med school around 2011-2012 who'd complain about their 80hr work weeks.

 

[mrbreakfast]

80 hour work week is for residents. No way a student should be working more than 60 hours a week on clinicals.

We clearly went to different medical schools, because I'm not too far removed from medical school, yet got close to 80 hours/week on surgery, and blew way past that on OBGYN as a med student, during which med students typically arrived between 4 and 4:30 am.

Of course, the residents in those specialties were still working far longer hours than the med students, so perhaps my home program is not the best role model...

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

We clearly went to different medical schools, because I'm not too far removed from medical school, yet got close to 80 hours/week on surgery, and blew way past that on OBGYN as a med student, during which med students typically arrived between 4 and 4:30 am.

Of course, the residents in those specialties were still working far longer hours than the med students, so perhaps my home program is not the best role model...

Did you feel any of that was actually useful for you as a third-year med student or mainly just a waste of time and a relic from a "take your lumps" generation?

Pretty much - should I be counting myself lucky or am I 'missing out' on training others are getting.

 

[throwaway123342]

Did you feel any of that was actually useful for you as a third-year med student or mainly just a waste of time and a relic from a "take your lumps" generation?

Pretty much - should I be counting myself lucky or am I 'missing out' on training others are getting.

Nothing in clerkship year was useful whatsoever outside of maybe IM floors.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

Nothing in clerkship year was useful whatsoever outside of maybe IM floors.

That's what I figured. When I see people have 12hr days as a third year I can't imagine what they're doing? Sitting around? or worse being forced to stand around?

 

[deleted1100659]

More time doesn't always equal better training. Its about what happens while you're there, what you see/do.

But if you dont find anything in clerkship useful, then you 3rd/4th year wrong. 3rd and 4th year is when you start to learn how to talk to patients, present, interact with families, come up with logical treatment plans, consult other physicians, etc, etc

 

[Dral]

Ooof, my surgery rotation in 2009 or so was about 4 or 5am to 8 or 9 pm daily.

That was when I was on at the VA a few hours away from our main hospital. It seemed like everyone was bumped up a notch so to speak. The students were like interns, the interns were like upper level residents, and the chief was basically filling an attending role.

Great experience and still better than ICU rotation when I was an actual intern. ha!

 

[Lawpy]

Ooof, my surgery rotation in 2009 or so was about 4 or 5am to 8 or 9 pm daily.

That was when I was on at the VA a few hours away from our main hospital. It seemed like everyone was bumped up a notch so to speak. The students were like interns, the interns were like upper level residents, and the chief was basically filling an attending role.

Great experience and still better than ICU rotation when I was an actual intern. ha!

I’ll take students functioning like interns any day. That’s exactly how clinical years are supposed to be. Not this idiotic game of acting like a glorified shadow and finding the attendings who only give all 5s

 

[Dral]

@Lawpy yep, it was a tough experience, but it was so worth it. We had real responsibility that we were held to by the chief...patient care stuff that depended on US alone on a daily basis. It's where I formed my closest bonds with patients during all of med school since I had such a relatively large role in their daily care.

 

[CanIBeAnonymous]

I’ll take students functioning like interns any day. That’s exactly how clinical years are supposed to be. Not this idiotic game of acting like a glorified shadow and finding the attendings who only give all 5s

@Lawpy yep, it was a tough experience, but it was so worth it. We had real responsibility that we were held to by the chief...patient care stuff that depended on US alone on a daily basis. It's where I formed my closest bonds with patients during all of med school.

See this is what I feel like I'm missing out on. I'm not paying tuition money to this hospital to be a glorified shadower.

 

[DarkBluMage]

Ooof, my surgery rotation in 2009 or so was about 4 or 5am to 8 or 9 pm daily.

That was when I was on at the VA a few hours away from our main hospital. It seemed like everyone was bumped up a notch so to speak. The students were like interns, the interns were like upper level residents, and the chief was basically filling an attending role.

Great experience and still better than ICU rotation when I was an actual intern. ha!

How did you find time to study for shelf exams while working 80hrs a week?

 

[Dral]

@DarkBluMage

It was pretty much studying the parts pertinent to my patients for maybe an hour or so at night.

That was only half of my surgery rotation. The other half was peds surg at the mother ship. That was a more normal schedule of about 6am to 5pm or so. I found time to study during that part of the rotation.

 

[Redpancreas]

So we started clerkships, and from what I'd hear on SDN it may as well be the end of the world 80+ work weeks.

However, I'm on Surgery right now and I get in around 6am and leave by 2pm unless there's an interesting case I want to see. We have weekend call twice over the course of 10 weeks. I'm hearing the same from friends on other rotations where they seem to be regularly done by 3pm.

Quote the posts you've seen about students having >80 hr. work weeks and we'll be happy to explain why they're not working 80H weeks as students.

My personal experience during surgery (8 week rotation) was that we had to go 530am-6pmish schedule x6 (maximum). The hard part was studying for the shelf on top of that. Rotations across medical schools vary. What you're describing seems pretty lax compared to my experience BUT at the place I'm at now for further training, it's comparable to what you're describing.

 

[Redpancreas]

Did you feel any of that was actually useful for you as a third-year med student or mainly just a waste of time and a relic from a "take your lumps" generation?

Pretty much - should I be counting myself lucky or am I 'missing out' on training others are getting.

You are missing out on 1 year of elevated cortisol levels. One could make the argument that's actually deleterious long term.

 

[sloop]

My third year rotations were in 2015-2016. My experience was nowhere near OP’s. We were pushing 80 hours on surgery and OB/GYN. We were even pushing that mark at times on IM, between residents who wanted us to stay until signout every day and a very weird, chaotic “clinic” we had to attend until like 9-10 PM once a week.

 

[mrbreakfast]

Did you feel any of that was actually useful for you as a third-year med student or mainly just a waste of time and a relic from a "take your lumps" generation?

Definitely useful. I learned a ton that was useful for the shelf but also for actual practice, particularly on surgery and medicine. OB less so, but I do see L&D consults often, so it's good to have that stuff floating around in the back of my memory banks. Also, knowing/presenting a lot of patients and taking overnight call is good practice for intern year.

In terms of studying for the shelf: UWorld app on phone. That's it. On both my surgery and OBGYN rotations, evenings were spent prepping for the next day's cases.

I had a clerkship where I was given a pager and expected to come in to the hospital overnight if I was paged (for cases). It only went off once or twice.